


Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

by Paint_It_Yellow



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, More of a what-if, i love nebula but i have no idea how to write her so..., in a loose sense of the term sure, infinity war fix-it, nebula kinda sorta indirectly saves everyone?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 12:52:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14915726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paint_It_Yellow/pseuds/Paint_It_Yellow
Summary: In which Peter doesn't punch Thanos like a fucking loser and everyone lives, sorta.





	Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

"He... He mourns..."

Time stood still, though just for a moment. Peter stood as static rang in his ears, for a moment his world was completely devoid of everything going on around him; Mantis wasn't there, all of a sudden. There wasn't anyone pulling at the gauntlet and there wasn't anyone using some sort of magic rope to hold the other side. There was no one. Head turning behind him, then back towards the only one in his sight, eyes widening as the truth of the situation dawned on him.

Gamora was dead. 

Killed by Thanos. 

"Quill, you gotta cool it right now, you got it?" A voice from his right came. He heard it, but he didn't register it. His gaze continued en route to Thanos'. 

"No, no! Don't engage! We almost got this thing off!"

Thanos murmured something under his breath, and Peter had thought he hadn't heard it. For another moment, there was silence between the two. 

"'Had to do it'..." Peter breathed, repeating what he had thought he'd heard. No, what he  _knew_ he heard. 

The onlookers seemed to only be able to watch as his teeth gritted together before he let out an anguished cry. 

" _No you didn't!"_

His eyes closed and his fist swung, he heard Tony yell right by his ear, and he flinched as his fist made contact, realisation of his terrible (but sort of justified) action dawning on him. He cracked his eyes open, part of him not wanting to see what was going to become of everything now that he'd probably doomed them all. 

But he glanced up and Mantis was still there, fighting her own battle, from the corner of his eye he could see the Spider-Kid and Iron-Guy, one of whom was pulling at the gauntlet, edging it further up and off by the moment, the other who was stepping away from his side to help the kid, on his other side he saw the magic guy using those weird ropes of his to restrain the titan. 

It took another deep breath for him to recognise that he hadn't just doomed them all, finally taking in what his punch had connected with. 

Blue, not purple. A hand, not a face. Very clearly not, in fact. His eyes drifted as his once gritted teeth relaxed, his shock now wholly evident. 

"Nebula..." He breathed, taking a step backwards as Nebula pushed his fist away from her. Her hardened gaze didn't waver as she stared him down. 

"Little help here?" Peter's attention was finally taken elsewhere as he turned to where Tony and Other-Peter were still pulling at the gauntlet. 

Quill was the first to move out of the two that were in front of Thanos, surprisingly, stumbling over himself slightly before gripping the cuff and pulling, Nebula joining after a brief moment. 

"We got it, we got it!" The kid spoke up, voice hopeful and god, Quill thought to himself, did he hope the kid was right. 

"Final pull, let's go!" He found himself saying before sucking in a deep breath, digging in his heels, and pulling harder than he's ever pulled before. 

The moment the gauntlet slid off and Peter found himself seated on the ground, there was a moment of relief that he hadn't known what to do with. Was that it? Was it over? 

"Kid, web up his arm would you?" 

"On it!" 

Quill heaved himself up onto his feet as he watched the now three person team work on restraining the titan. 

 "What do we do now?" He breathed. 

"Now, we get out of here and get rid of this," Tony replied, patting the gauntlet sitting on the ground next to him. 

"...And how do we do that? We can't leave them," Peter gestured to the restraining team, "while we go off somewhere else."

 Tony paused. "Our priority is getting the gauntlet out of here and away from Thanos," he finally spoke, "Once it's away we'll destroy the stones and that'll be the end of that."

' _What about Gamora?'_ he found himself about to ask, but stopped himself in a moment of spectacular self-restraint. 

The thought of Gamora brought his attention back to Nebula who was standing, watching them in stoic silence before heading towards the two. 

"What about my sister?" she asked. 

"What if... We return the stone?" Peter proposed off the top of his head. "We could return the stone to where it's meant to be and maybe we could get Gamora back."

"No, no, no," was Tony's response. "We need to destroy the stone, we can't risk it falling into the wrong hands again."

"We can at least try!" Peter insisted, there was a way to get Gamora back, he knew there was, and he wasn't going to give it up just because some guy said he should. 

"But do we even know where the stone was located beforehand?" Nebula asked, voice unwavering and yet strangely quiet. 

There was silence from Peter and he stared at Nebula. Surely she wasn't trying to imply that they  _not_ _search for Gamora._

"Does it matter?" He insisted further. "If we just use the soul stone to bring her back then-" 

"If you try and use the stone you'll surely die," Nebula replied. 

"Then do it with me!"

He released a shaky breath and stared at the gauntlet in the not-so-newfound silence, then at Tony who was looking at him as though he was crazy, then to Nebula, who looked conflicted and was avoiding his gaze altogether. 

"Please, let me try," he tried, voice as sincere as it had ever been in his entire life. 

Tony brought a hand to his face and exhaled a sigh that would've been dramatic in any other situation, gaze shifting to those who were still restraining Thanos. 

"Look, just... Let's deal with that problem after this problem."

Peter was about to open his mouth to respond but Tony was already heading off to help the others and soon, so was he. 

 

* * *

 

"Ready?" Peter looked to Nebula who'd (reluctantly) taken his hand, soul stone sitting on the table in front of him, what could only be described as a small crowd gathered behind the two- only those who'd been on Titan.  

A nod. 

He hadn't even managed to grasp the stone before he felt its power reverberating throughout him, but he steeled himself and grabbed it anyway, followed by the tortured screams of the two channeling the power of the stone. The crowd took a step forward, but didn't touch the two despite their cries, exchanging unsure looks, seeming as though they wanted to say something, but they restrained themselves. They would step in only if needed. 

When the screaming stopped, a thud was sounded and the stone was no where to be found, the crowd waited with bated breath for one of the two to get up and say something, anything. For a moment, it was as if they were dead, but a sharp inhale and laborious breaths said otherwise. 

Blue lips moved first in anything resembling speech, but it was human ones that spoke the first coherent words.

"Vormir..." A whisper, then more steady. "We're going to Vormir."

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, Listen. I am so, so fucking new to this franchise and I wasn't going to post this because it's so fucking stupid and I got into the franchise after seeing IW (I'm not doing this in a good order, clearly), but my friend mentioned this idea and it was going to be some crack about Drax being invisible but it just sorta... Got away from me.
> 
> Look, if Squirrel Girl can kill Thanos in the comics then pretty sure this can happen as well.
> 
> Marvel, hire me. 
> 
> Side note: Although it's deadly short, I hope I didn't mess up any of the characters too badly since it's my first time (not that you can really tell for any of them but y'know).


End file.
